1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless local area network (WLAN), more particularly to an access point device and a method for setting a channel of the access point device of the WLAN.
2. Description of Related Art
The WLAN has been standardized by IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 802.11 committee.
The following illustrates the WLAN standardized by the IEEE 802.11 committee, especially an extended service set ESS.
The ESS includes a server, a distribution system and a plurality of basic service sets BSS. Each of the BSSes consists of an access point device, and stations. That is, a number of the stations connected to the access point device can be changed.
A connection method of the system is explained below.
In the BSSes, access point devices and the stations are respectively connected by transmitting/receiving frames pursuant to the IEEE 802.11 standards. Each of the stations transmits a probe request frame to all channel numbers, and each of the access point devices transmits a probe response frame to the stations. The stations determine the best accessible access point device and transmit an authentication request frame, and the access point devices transmit the authentication response frame to the stations. Each of the access point devices of the BSSes must previously set channel number to communicate with each of the stations. Here, the channel numbers of each of the access point devices preferably have an interval of three channels so that the access point devices can perform communication without being interrupted by the peripheral access point devices.
Such channel numbers are set in the access point devices during the production. In the case that a plurality of access point devices exist near the access point device, the access point device cannot obtain an appropriate channel interval from the peripheral access point devices. As a result, communication interruptions are generated on the WLAN.
In this case, the user using stations having a built-in peripheral search function program searches channels of the peripheral access point devices by executing the peripheral search function program. Thereafter, the user directly finds and sets the least interrupted channel according to the search result.
That is, the general access point device having the previously-set channel number may not obtain an appropriate channel interval from the peripheral access point devices, and thus generates interruptions during the communication. Accordingly, the user using the stations has to execute the program and manually find and set the non-interruption channel.